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Nigeria: FCTA Commits N1Billion to Environment
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This Day (Lagos)
8 July 2008
Posted to the web 8 July 2008
Damilola Oyedele
Abuja
Federal Capital Territory Administration has increased the 2008 budgetary allocation of its Parks and Recreation Department to N1billion from N100million.
This was done with the view of combating some of the effects of global warming and to slow down the consequences of man's contribution to the depletion of the ozone layer.
This is in addition to its effort at combating desertification by the planting of one million trees this Saturday with music stars billed for the THISDAY Music Festival expected to participate in the exercise.
Minister of the FCT, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar, while conducting newsmen round the nursery where over 150,000 tree seedlings are being nurtured in Abuja yesterday, said the increase in the budget of the department was necessary to enable it live up to expectations and keep the city green.
"This is the resolve we have taken to really make Abuja green and to minimize the effects of global warming as responsible citizens of the world. We have a responsibility to keep Mother Earth as green as it has always been, to protect it. We owe it to the next generation," he said.
The budgetary increase,according to him, is intended to help with the maintenance of the trees so as to sustain it for continuity.
The exercise, he added, would encourage environmental protection consciousness in the territory and by extension, Nigeria.
He added that the seedlings were contributed by various companies and private individuals which is a boost for the morale of the FCTA . The Nigeria Army, he said, has seconded a whole platoon to help in the exercise with 1,500 volunteers already signed up.
The Board of Trustees of the Abuja Green Society, he said, would be inaugurated and will be headed by former Minister of Defence, General Theophilus Danjuma, adding that each neighbourhood would be encouraged to have a chapter so that they can ensure the greenness of their environment.
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Last week, at a meeting with the FCT House Committee in the House of Representatives, the Minister revealed his intention for a proposal to ensure that every child born in the FCT from August 2008, would have a tree planted for him and would be provided with coordinators to help him monitor his tree as he grows .
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